Osstem Dental Implants For a long while, Bicon was our dental implant system of choice. For overdentures where implants cannot be placed parallel to one another, Bicon is a good system to use because the angled ball attachments can be rotated 360o. Especially worthy of mention, is that with Bicon, the implant practitioner has the freedom to place implants very close together. There are areas where Bicon has its limitations as we progress to complex cases. One area where Bicon may not perform as well as another system is in the upper front region where bone is thin. Other cases where Bicon is not indicated include ridge splits and sinus lifts. The folks at Bicon may be able to show us some successful cases, but it's much more difficult for us to do these cases with Bicon than with other systems. Where Bicon has failed us before, we have successfully placed Osstem GSII implants. This is a conventional system where the abutment is held on the implant with a screw. The special thing about this implant is its bone compression capability. A Bicon implant is usually placed loosely into a prepared hole of the same size. For a 3.5mm implant, the hole in the bone must be at least 3.5mm in diameter. For Osstem GSII, soft bone in the upper front region only needs to be prepared to 2.7mm for a 3.5mm implant to squeeze its way through. This makes Osstem GSII ideal for the thin, soft bone in the upper front region. We have successfully squeezed many 3.5mm Osstem implants into bone that is barely 3.5mm in width. Even when bone is inadequate and the implants are exposed on one surface, the excellent primary stability of Osstem implants make bone grafting much more predictable. If you come to us with missing upper front teeth to replace with implants, Osstem would be our implant of choice. For other areas, we will still consider Bicon.